Onyx Rain
by Ling-Hao
Summary: After returning to Hidden Sand Village, Gaara becomes restless and decides to leave. While wandering the desert, he meets someone who wants him to make it rain. A story about what redemption means. Warning: angst; mild cursing. *COMPLETE*
1. Blue Sky

The sky was blue. A very general, well-known statement, but nevertheless, it was blue. There was a wisp of cirrus on the horizon, but beyond that, it was blue. It had been blue all year, and so it had been even drier in the desert than usual, though this didn't seem to phase the two figures that were perched on a yellow dune. The haze of desert sand lazily surrounded them, an effect created by the light breeze that stirred.  
  
"I'm leaving," Gaara said in an edged tone as he stepped away from his older sister.  
  
"Gaara, we just got back. You don't have to-" Temari began, reaching an arm out as if to touch him. She pulled it back quickly, though. He had always been far away, too far away to touch. Even if she tried to come after him, he would just block her out. Like he always had. Temari sighed and turned so their backs faced each other.  
  
"Just take care of yourself, ne, Gaara?" she added in a subdued tone. She stepped away from him, and began to walk. Temari didn't look back. If she did, she would stop walking. She broke into a run, back to the relative safety of Hidden Sand Village, away from the desert. Away from Gaara.  
  
Temari disappeared into the afternoon haze of sun and sand. Gaara didn't even watch her go.  
  
Gaara glanced over his shoulder in the direction that Temari had taken, eyes narrowed. She would tell everyone that he ran away, wouldn't she? And they'd be glad. They'd be positively overflowing with joy that the demon was gone, glad it was no longer their problem.  
  
He hated them all.  
  
Gaara's fist had begun to unconsciously clench, and he felt the sand in his gourd stirring along with his wrath. It had been several days since his last kill, he would soon have to again. His body began to tingle at the mere thought, the ecstasy of watching their terrified, pained faces before their end lightly brushing his mind. Gaara shook his head to clear the memories - they would only slow him down now, and the desert was unmerciful to the weak. He started a slow paced walk that took him up the side of the dune, where he surveyed the territory. His territory.  
  
The desert was brutally hot in the day, and below zero at night. It was devoid of almost every living organism and water was scarce. Gaara could relate.  
  
A sudden movement caught his eye, and he whipped out a senbon into the offending organism. It turned out to be a small black beetle, one that was now writhing in agony. Gaara sat back on his haunches, his slitted eyes of ice glaring at it. He watched it slowly bake in the sun for a few minutes before deciding that it was not worth his time. Gaara left as quickly as he'd come.  
  
Therefore, he did not see the beetle scuttle off, the senbon still lodged in its back. 


	2. Gray Dream

It was cool at night, to put it mildly. It was also black. There were no villages besides that of the Hidden Sand - it was built around the only known oasis. No one was headstrong enough to build a city in a place where it only rained three times a year. That made the night blacker than black. It turned the festering, sweltering day into a depressing ocean of silence that stretched to infinity. There were no city lights and no people. There were no crickets to chirp, no owls to hoot, no frogs to croak. It brought a feeling Gaara was familiar with - the feeling of being alone.  
  
Gaara felt the familiar presence of sand buzzing around the air about him like a swarm of gnats as he forced it to animate itself. Willing the grains to calm, he wrapped them around himself like a blanket. He didn't sleep, though. He hardly ever slept anymore. Nightmares of past, present, and future plagued him, and he didn't enjoy the prospect of having to consider any of them. Gaara fought sleep for as long as he could, but he hadn't had any the night before, and so he lost the final battle.  
  
Gaara didn't experience any terror that night, though.  
  
Instead, he dreamed of rain.  
  
Gray, pounding, roaring rain, splattering on him and soaking him from head to toe. He dreamed of standing in a knee deep puddle while a tempest raged around him, ripping away his gourd and plastering his fiery hair to his face. He dreamed of struggling to stand and finally giving up, splashing into the puddle. Then the rain quieted, the thunder became distant, and it slowed to a tit tat on his head, drumming on his skull and echoing for a hundred thousand miles. The storm clouds shifted and rolled and boiled, but didn't regain their earlier violence. Gaara squinted through the rain at a hued curve that had appeared in the sky. Colors he hadn't learned the names for, lined up in bands, bending so slightly to the right-  
  
Gaara sprung awake, scattering sand with a grinding, smashing sound. He lifted one hand to his chest and felt his pounding heart, he listened to his own gasping breaths. His crystalline eyes flicked from side to side, attempting to quickly assess the situation. His eyes caught the first light of dawn, creeping up on him from behind the dune he leaned on. Gaara stood, brushing sand off of himself. The sand was different today. It was more scratchy, more irritating-Gaara caught himself quickly. The sand was the same as yesterday, he hadn't added any more blood to it. It hadn't changed. Nothing had. Pushing the strange dream out of his mind, Gaara ascended to the top of the dune to meet the first light of day. 


	3. Green Forest

Note: Geh. I hate doing these. They always annoy me when I'm reading fanfics, so I'm trying to avoid them. I just wanted to thank the people who've reviewed, and also to apologize for the short chapters. Hopefully this one will be a little longer. I introduce a new character here, but don't worry about lovey dovey mary sue crap - none of that occurs in MY story, dammit!  
  
The day was a monotonous one - exactly like the one before it and certain enough to be exactly like the one that was going to come tomorrow. It gave an air of eternity to the shifting, melting heat wave that was a constant in the desert. Every dune looked exactly the same as the one before it, and it continued in a process that stretched towards the distant horizon.  
  
On a nondescript dune in the infinitely large desert, Gaara was assaulting the only living thing for miles.  
  
It was a massive, crooked old cactus that had a strange resemblance to a miniature forest, though foot-long spikes helped to show otherwise. It was bent at strange angles, adding a whisper of eeriness to the otherwise banal landscape. Gaara, deftly avoiding the cactus's sharp defenses, was ripping off portions of the cactus with alarming celerity. The portions that he tore off were promptly placed in the sand beside him.  
  
Upon closer examination, it would have to be noted that each of these portions contained a small amount of water.  
  
Gaara paused in the vandalizing of the cactus to, one by one, empty the contents of the cactus into a small water container that had been previously stored in an inconspicuous pocket in his raven-hued pants. The leftover pieces, once having been removed of water, were placed in a separate pouch. Gaara repeated this process several times, effectively demolishing several yards' worth of previously formidable growth.  
  
It was only when someone tapped him on the shoulder that he even realized he was not alone.  
  
Gaara's azure eyes hardened into diamonds, and he swiftly snatched up some stray needles from the cactus and spun around, hurling them into his opponent - whoever they were - all in one fluid motion. Thoughts darted through Gaara's previously stoic mind, trying to understand how that person had been able to come so close without alerting him.  
  
Gaara wasn't surprised when he found all of the needles dodged, and he reached behind him, grabbing for the cork to his gourd. This would be over in an instant if he could -  
  
A hand stopped his, and pale azure met obsidian black. Gaara paused, his other hand ready to attack or defend, depending on what occurred next.  
  
The person in front of him appeared to be female, around his age. He caught a glimpse of onyx eyes and matching, shin-length hair before something very unexpected occurred. The girl, with an alacrity all her own, socked him in the face. Hard.  
  
And, although Gaara was used to such punches due to his own training, there was something strange about this one.  
  
Or at least, that was what he thought before he passed out.  
  
It was only later- when the sky was awash with coppery hues that signified the end of another day- that Gaara regained consciousness. As opposed to what someone like Naruto would do, Gaara decided to lie quietly and think about a possible approach to this new foe - and also to wonder why he wasn't dead yet. The opponent obviously could have ended his life right then and there if they so chose.  
  
It was then that he noticed something was wrong with his surroundings. Yes, the feeling of sliding grit behind his back made sense - he was on a sand dune. The fiery desert sunset off in the distance also made sense. No, it was more like there wasn't a weight where there should be. He realized what was wrong.  
  
She had taken his gourd.  
  
Anger quickly swept away confusion, and Gaara sat up. His eyes slitted dangerously, he did a full 360-degree turn while, at the same time, unconsciously going through the fabric of his outfit in a search for hidden weapons, though he came up with none. Those were gone, too.  
  
And then someone tapped him on the shoulder. 


	4. Red Dunes

The sun fell, like a setting phoenix on the horizon, and washed the desert in its evanescent glow. Final glimmers of periwinkle dotted it; at the corners the sky was still flaring with red-orange brilliance. The dunes rose and fell like coiled sidewinder snakes, outlining two silhouettes spread on one of them.  
  
"I wish you would stop trying to kill me," a voice interjected with a sigh. "I mean, I'm obviously not trying to kill you - couldn't you at least be a little more friendly?"  
  
Gaara chose not to answer this idiotic request, and instead slowly faced in the stranger's direction, allowing a better view of her angular features.  
  
She was slightly shorter than him and wore her long hair in buns, though some still exited those and dragged by her shins. Bangs cloaked her stone ocean eyes, almost completely hiding them from view. The only threatening things about her were those eyes - it was as if you looked too deeply into them, you would drown in a sea of black.  
  
"Where is my gourd?" Gaara questioned in his usual monotone, though his face was darkened with anger. His nails dug deeply into his palms, but Gaara ignored the few drops of blood that escaped the tears he created in his own flesh.  
  
This girl was going to die.  
  
She had taken the one thing that meant anything to him anymore, and now she was making some kind of pathetic attempt to befriend him. Something was obviously wrong with her head.  
  
"Oh, THAT," the girl muttered, mostly to herself.  
  
She reached behind her and pulled the hollow container off of her back. She tossed it over to Gaara without a second thought; Gaara caught it easily and hefted it back onto his own shoulders.  
  
He hadn't emptied it back into the desert after he'd returned from Konoha because it had become the one thing that was a constant in his life. The heavy weight of sand in its oblong container had always been a comfort to him, a symbol that wherever he went, he could take a little piece of those he hated with him. Vengeance, if you will. Gaara intended to take it with him straight to Hell.  
  
A newer, sharper thought entered his mind - there was no sand in his gourd. Now, it was too light, too empty, too hollow. His face darkened like the backdrop of the sky was busily doing; the anger forgotten returned in full force. He didn't understand how this witch had pulled it off, but somehow someone other than himself had manipulated HIS sand.  
  
"I emptied it, as you may have noticed," the girl informed him, voicing his thoughts. "The sand in there has become. . . . different. Different from the desert sand. If you'll look to your left, you will see your sand."  
  
Gaara's obsidian-edged diamond eyes glared at her, but eventually he turned his head.  
  
And saw sand dunes, of course.  
  
Then he realized that the reddish hue they sported wasn't from the fading light of day. No, this rusty hue was something else entirely. He checked his right to confirm his suspicions.  
  
To his right, the sand dunes were a singed yellow-orange.  
  
Gaara returned his sight to the dunes to his left. That rusted, iron ore color - he recognized it. And than the stench hit him in a nauseating wave.  
  
Or at least, it would be nauseating to Gaara if he hadn't smelled it every time he had a fresh kill on his hands.  
  
The yellow dunes were stained red.  
  
With blood. 


	5. Silver Stars

Night had fallen, bringing with it the intense coolness traditional of desert nights, though most seem to believe otherwise. The dunes, both bloodstained red and burnished copper, had become silhouettes, a frame for the masterpiece tapestry of the nighttime sky. Celestial bodies glowed and shined in the heavens - glimmers of hope in an ocean of inky blackness.  
  
The girl whose eyes matched the pitch hue of the night sky began to speak, words flowing from her lips like water.  
  
"That sand is yours, Gaara. I've been assigned to make sure that you wash it clean. In other words, I've been sent to help you redeem yourself."  
  
Gaara's mind attempted to process the words that had come forth from her mouth. A mysterious girl appears, he tries to kill her, she hits him, she takes away the only thing that comforts him, she tries to befriend him? She tells him that he must redeem himself? Gaara couldn't help but snicker, something so unlike him that he surprised himself.  
  
He could never be redeemed. Not in the eyes of the people of Hidden Sand Village. He had been both labeled and cursed the day he was born. He had been eternally damned before he had even learned how to walk. And now some stranger appears and tells him he can be redeemed? Ridiculous. The desert would sooner be flooded than the big guy in the sky redeem a demon.  
  
"You think this is funny?!" the outraged girl yelled, her voice carrying on the night breeze that had begun to blow. She strode purposefully towards Gaara, the baggy cream garment she wore beginning to whip and billow in the wind.  
  
She stopped when her face was inches away from Gaara's, and her onyx eyes stared him down. Gaara's own blue defiantly clashed with the black, but he felt himself being pulled in. The black was spreading, drowning him, pulling in and pushing out and pulsating like a living thing as it spread around his vision and devoured the scenery all around them.  
  
The girl stepped away, but the black remained. Gaara blinked, assuming it to be some trick of the light, but the raven color was still there. Gaara could almost feel his lungs sucking it in. And it was cold. Colder than the desert at night, though usually at least the sand stayed warm from having absorbed the heat of day. This was freezing, arctic temperatures that were instigating a vigorous effect on his body.  
  
"This is the void," the girl said. Her voice seemed smaller and less penetrating than it had in the desert. A somber mood hung over her now - a huge contrast to her earlier outrage. "You think you'll go to hell when you die? Hell is a blessing compared to this place. This place was made to make even the most cold, heartless bastard go insane. This is the only place where you'd be truly alone."  
  
Alone. Gaara relished the word and welcomed it. He didn't understand what this girl was babbling about - he had been truly alone every day of his life. She obviously didn't quite comprehend who he was. Or what he was, for that matter.  
  
His thoughts paused when she began to speak again.  
  
"What I mean is, on Earth, you can be alone. But there are other people on Earth. Here, the only person you can hurt is yourself."  
  
And then Gaara understood.  
  
If he were to go to this void when he died, then he wouldn't be able to kill anyone ever again. He wouldn't have an outlet to ease the pain of being loathed by every being that he ever met. There was no need for a Satan and horde of demons to torture him.  
  
He would destroy himself.  
  
This realization sent a chill down his spine, and suddenly he wanted to be away from this frozen place as quickly as possible.  
  
Gaara's monotone soon found its way to his mouth.  
  
"I've seen enough."  
  
The raven girl said nothing in reply, but the scenery began to return and the temperature returned to that of a normal desert night.  
  
In the sky, the stitched silver stars twinkled and twirled on the cloak of pitch black, and spoke of hope. 


	6. Disclaimer

Ehehehe. . . . .  
  
No, this isn't another chapter, sorry.  
  
Thank you, doragon. I've only seen up to episode 35 in the series (not much of the comic has come out in the U.S., as you may have noticed). Therefore, I haven't seen enough of Gaara to know everything about him (I still like him, though).  
  
I apologize for any inconsistencies in the plot. I'll try to fix them, but its kinda hard. Heh. In fact, I probably won't, because it deals a lot with how this fic is supposed to go. But I'll look at my word documents and see if I can at least fix it a bit.  
  
Oh yeah, I might as well do a disclaimer while I'm at it.  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I wouldn't be sitting here, writing fanfics.  
  
Reviews and constructive criticism welcome. Outright flames will immediately be sprayed with carbon dioxide so nothing else catches on fire. 


	7. Pink Dawn

The first beams of gold spread their way across the desert. They curled around each dune, both red and yellow, and they melted the stony night sky into a brew of rose and apricot. They gave an ethereal sparkle to each grain of sand on the dunes and effectively illuminated the only two people who were apparently stupid enough to be in the desert in the middle of a drought.  
  
Gaara awoke to the unpleasant feeling of someone lightly kicking him and muttering with consistency the same words, over and over.  
  
"Wake up. Wake up. . . . . wake up. . . . wake up. . . . ." the voice was saying. In a break of its consistency, it chose to add "Dumbass. . . . ."  
  
Ignoring the blatant insult that had been so lazily thrown at him, Gaara sat up. He brushed some sand off of his worn clothes, and turned to his companion. He stared at he until her speech finally began to make sense.  
  
"Got anything on you that we can eat?"  
  
Gaara didn't answer - but he did pull out some of the cactus bits that he had taken from the monstrous jade cactus when he was retrieving water. These he immediately began to chew on, and when he made no move to share, the girl snatched some from his hand. She put the pieces in her mouth - and made very interesting faces in reaction to the taste. Once she was finished swallowing, her voice began to fill up the empty space between her and Gaara in what Gaara considered a waste of breath.  
  
"I think I've got a rag that you can use to clean those sands with. I hope you weren't thinking that you only had to do some miraculously good deed to clean those sands, no, you have to clean them by hand and. . ." She paused, thought about what she just said, and gave up. Any conversation with the fiery-haired boy in front of her would be completely one-sided. "Anyway, you dropped this."  
  
The girl handed him a senbon. Gaara stared at it before taking it and rolling it over in his hands. He recalled using only one senbon so far on his expedition in the desert.  
  
"In the future, don't kill so needlessly," the girl continued in a miraculous display of intertwining sense with babble.  
  
She began to rummage through her own clothing for a few minutes before finally pulling out what turned out to be a slightly damp, dirty washcloth. Gaara hadn't been listening to her rant earlier, but he could easily figure out what she intended to make him do. He said nothing, but took the washcloth and made his way down the dune towards the veritable sea of red sand that was spread out in front of them.  
  
Gaara kneeled before it and ignored the beastly aroma that came from sun- baked blood. He took a handful of the rusted sand in the washcloth and began the slow process of scrubbing it all clean. 


	8. Purple Moon

By the time the tent of night - pockmarked by glints of light and the crescent of a waxing moon - had been raised, Gaara had only finished what turned out to be a basketful of sand.  
  
He leaned into a dune while the wind whistled against the front of the dune, sending stray grains of sand over its edge onto him and the stranger- girl, who was almost invisible in the shadow of the dune, seen only by the light that the cream garment she wore caught from the moon and stars.  
  
Despite the cool, whipping wind, Gaara could still faintly hear her light breathing. A sign that she was still awake as well.  
  
Gaara turned, forcing the sand to shape around his gourd as he faced the sky and its iridescent pixies of light.  
  
The faint shape of a cirrus cloud breezed by the moon, briefly changing its hue from quail's egg blue and mercury to a purple blot in the sky. The cloud was only there for an instant; in merely a second the moon was there again, pale and soft. Its delicate, dragonfly-wing-quality light was a sharp contrast to the waspish, stinging rays of the sun. The wind picked up again, but it didn't bother him. The frigid night wasn't really a problem since the sand beneath him was still warm from the burning day.  
  
Gaara briefly wondered if he was caught in some big metaphor - and immediately closed his eyes and pushed the scenery away. This didn't stay the flow of thoughts, though. Instead, it only brought newer more disturbing ones to his head, and Gaara could feel the questions irresistibly bubbling up to him lips. He bit back most, but still one came out.  
  
"Girl. . . . what if I had emptied the gourd after returning from Konoha?"  
  
In the shadow, he could still vaguely make out the lines of her face as it turned towards him. A frown was in place on her lips, though Gaara couldn't imagine why.  
  
"I have a name, you know."  
  
To this, Gaara had no reply.  
  
"It's Maizul."  
  
Still, no reply.  
  
"If I answer your question, will you tell me yours?"  
  
Silence descended once again, and Gaara heard something that sounded like a sigh. To break the heavy atmosphere, she began to speak again.  
  
"If you had emptied the gourd earlier, you'd still have to clean it up. Just because you left it behind wouldn't mean that the mess was no longer yours."  
  
The girl - no, Maizul - shifted so she had a better view of Gaara's eyes. Talking to Gaara was like talking to a wall or a plant, although admittedly the wall or plant in question wouldn't be able to ignore you so thoroughly when it decided that your words were nothing but inane chitchat. Still, she had to try. He was her charge.  
  
"I answered your question. Now, tell me your name."  
  
There was a brief pause, and then, to Maizul's surprise, his lips began to move.  
  
"Gaara."  
  
Maizul briefly contemplated the exchange that had just taken place. Gaara hadn't tried to kill her; he had even answered her question. He had even acknowledged her existence. Maizul resisted the temptation of laughter, choosing instead to form her feelings into words.  
  
"That's the most I've ever heard you say!" 


	9. Yellow Sun

The sun was hot and warm like melted butter on his back. The dunes were lumps of crystal in his sun-streaked vision, and sweat was beginning to coat his body in a fine sheen as it dripped off of his nose and onto the patch of glassy sand he was scraping between the folded stained pink washcloth. His hands, too, had been burned raw and dyed from the blood that he'd been trying to wash away.  
  
Gaara glared at the sweat that was dripping onto the washcloth. Sweat meant his body was losing water - and he didn't have much to replace it with.  
  
The container he'd filled with cactus-water was nearly empty, and he'd already torn down the entire cactus. While he worked, Maizul went and searched, but so far it had been fruitless. Even digging in the sand had proved to be of no benefit. There simply was no more water. The drought had taken its toll, and so it gave Gaara the nasty feeling that he was going to die very soon in an unpleasant way.  
  
Gaara slid back into the sand behind him, wiping his glistening brow and letting the cleaned sand slide from the washcloth back onto the ground. This was in no way an easy job - he hadn't even completed one full dune of sand and there were still a hundred out there. The nightly wind didn't help, either - it only meant that more sand was being blown off the dunes, away from him.  
  
It made Gaara wonder why he was bothering to try at all.  
  
But then he would remember the void.  
  
He would remember how it had felt to stand in the abyss; to know that going there meant destroying yourself. It meant a fate worse than death.  
  
Gaara unconsciously took another fistful of sand up into the washcloth and began to rub it clean with his torn, bloodstained hands.  
  
And it made him wonder. . . .  
  
What was redemption, anyway? What did it all mean? Why had he been chosen?  
  
He wasn't thinking about the hokey 'forgiven by God' bullshit. To him, redemption was to be forgiven by his people - those who despised him more than anything else. He knew, somewhere deep inside, somewhere inside of himself that he hadn't allowed to surface for a long time. . . .  
  
He knew Maizul couldn't give him that.  
  
She wasn't the will of the people. Only the people could decide what they wanted, and they had decided to hate Gaara.  
  
And somewhere deep inside, it made him ache. Doomed to die a pathetic death by dehydration, in a wasteland where no one cared, all alone.  
  
Gaara wished he could rip his thirst-swollen tongue out of his mouth, but that would only mean more blood, more mess. For the first time, Gaara was sick of the blood and the putrid, festering smell it brought. The smell that assaulted him daily now, even as he cleansed the sand he had brought death upon.  
  
The heavy breathing of another worn soul alerted Gaara of Maizul's entrance onto the scene.  
  
She, too, was streaked in sweat. Her bangs were plastered to her forehead and her eyes were dull, an unusual trait in the lively girl. Chunks of fabric were missing from the baggy dirty cloak she wore, having been used to replace the first washcloth that had become useless after the first day. Her feet slogged through the sand at a snail's pace; her mouth was slightly parted, indicating that her jaw muscles didn't have the energy required to keep it completely closed. She looked as exhausted as Gaara did.  
  
Her eyes regained a small amount of shine when they tiredly rested on him, but she still collapsed on the sand next to him, panting and wheezing.  
  
"There's no - water -," she gasped out. "I - walked for - miles."  
  
Gaara said nothing, but he did hand her a small water container that he had stored in his pants. Maizul graciously took it, hefted it in her hand to estimate the amount of water left, and drank the tiniest of sips.  
  
"Thank - you."  
  
Gaara dropped the washcloth on the sand that scalded his hands and stood. His azure gaze met the similarly colored sky, and he risked a glance at the sphere of acidic light that rippled in his vision from the heat wave that accosted the sands.  
  
Everything was burning up - almost a pile of ashes already.  
  
He wondered how much longer he could survive it. 


	10. Gold Wish

To everyone who's reviewed: Thanks again. I really do like my stories to be accurate (I know how much it bothers me when I read an inconsistent fanfic), and also thank you for the compliments. I didn't expect to get any reviews at all because Gaara isn't a very popular character (lots more Sasuke and Naruto out there). So arigatou, arigatou, arigatou!  
  
With the quarter moon came the dry desert night. It liquefied the landcape into a lumpy, cold mush of ash and quiet death. An oppressive silence hung over the desert, broken only by the occasional lonely howl of air blasting overhead. The wind carried with it the sands, which in turn flew over the sides of the dunes and landed on other sand. Occasionally, the sand would land on something other than sand - two people. They were lying on the leeward side of a dune, facing the sand that was Gaara's to clean.  
  
Gaara himself was asleep - at least from what Maizul could gather.  
  
His eyes were shut and his breathing was slow and even. His short, tangled- fire hair was dusted with a light coating of sand, the kanji for love was lit by pale moonlight, dulling its scarlet hue. His eye sockets themselves looked like holes into his face, what with the black that was spread around and over his eyelids. He certainly didn't look 'cute' when he slept - it was like using 'cute' to describe a skeleton.  
  
She touched a hand to his forehead, and winced when her prediction turned out to be true. Gaara was burning with fever. She knew he would never tell her if he wasn't feeling well; he would assume that it was only the heat of the desert affecting him. Maizul snorted. Men could be so stubborn, sometimes.  
  
But why had she been assigned to take care of Gaara?  
  
There were those more equipped for handling the desert than her. They knew that dry places like the desert were her weakness. They would only do this for a reason.  
  
And in the middle of a drought, too! A frown spread over Maizul's face. Her specialties made her weakest during droughts, so. . . .  
  
So it had to do with her charge in the first place, then.  
  
But what was special about Gaara? He wasn't as old as most of the other madmen she had been sent to handle, but he didn't seem any kinder than most of them.  
  
Well, he had given her some of his water willingly.  
  
Maybe it dealt with something Gaara had to do. She didn't think he could survive much longer in the desert, though. Neither could she. Not in this drought. And there really wasn't anything he could do for anyone else in the desert.  
  
Maybe that was it, then. Maybe, maybe, if it rained. . . . .  
  
Maybe she could save him. Maybe he could save himself. Maybe he could save everybody.  
  
It was a hope, a wish, but right then, a golden shooting star streaked across the pitch sky. It briefly illuminated that wish before its fleeting light faded and it disappeared.  
  
Maizul smiled to herself. She knew what to do. 


	11. Rainbow Cloud

Sunlight dimly filtered through closed eyelids that gradually fluttered open to reveal pale cerulean eyes.  
  
The heat was the next thing to kick in, and after that came thirst and hunger.  
  
Why was it so bright, though? Maizul usually woke him up at dawn. Maizul. . . . . she. . .  
  
Gaara leaped up with a start, and his surroundings clicked into focus.  
  
There was the acid sun; the rolling, glittery gold dunes; the scarlet dunes and their stench of death. The crystal periwinkle sapphire sky. Where was Maizul?  
  
Maybe she had gone to look for water. That was it. She wouldn't leave him alone, would she?  
  
Alone. Of course she had. She couldn't survive much longer, and she knew it, so she had left. Gaara felt the bitterness begin to invade him - the bitterness of being alone yet again. He was going to die soon. He was going to die; without her, without killing anyone and taking them with him, without anything. He was going to die a worthless death in the desert.  
  
Or maybe he would make good on his vengeance. Maybe he could catch up with her and kill her so he wouldn't be alone in his worthless end.  
  
Gaara struggled up to the peak of the dune and stumbled down the other side, his eyes darting around in the search for her footprints. He found them, too; some indentations in the sand which couldn't have been created by wind or sun. He began to follow them in an almost blind fashion, blocking out everything else but his feet moving towards where she was bound to be.  
  
Despite Gaara's zombie-like state and appearance, he did notice when a shadow encompassed him, giving relief from the sweltering tepidity of day. His eyes subsequently trailed towards the sky, where the only possibility for creating such an adumbration lay.  
  
The sky was blue.  
  
The sky was blue, but not entirely blue.  
  
The ashen thunderhead of an incoming storm was blocking out the sun, and steadily moving at an incredibly quick pace to join with another cumulonimbus approaching from the other direction. There was a patch of blue between them - a groove in the sky that was soon to be filled in.  
  
It occurred to Gaara that this could not be a natural phenomenon. Two clouds converging in this manner was not possible because it meant that the wind was blowing two different ways at the same time. In the same place. And furthermore, this was a desert; in the middle of a drought. It was not the rainy season, so. . . .  
  
Gaara knew it had something to do with Maizul's disappearance, but he didn't know enough to figure out why yet. All he knew was that Maizul and the incoming tempest were inexplicably connected.  
  
And then the rains came. The rolling, boiling clouds, filled with all the ferocity of a bull charging a matador at top speed, opened their bellies and released an onslaught of stabbing points of aqua.  
  
Gaara struggled to stand in the cloudburst that beat against his head, shoulders and back. His own matching points of gray and blue tried to make out the heavy gray froth that was boiling somewhere beyond the darts that were trying to pierce his skin. Thunder boomed and rumbled and crashed - a frenzied stab of lightning crisscrossed the sky and vexed the thunder into producing yet another discordant, earsplitting blast.  
  
A sudden gale toppled the already unsteady Gaara over into a huge puddle, and he forced himself up, though he did let the blessed water slide down his throat and into his body that was caked in mud and dirt and more of the liquid. Gaara continued in the direction he hoped he had been heading, all while he slogged through knee-deep water.  
  
Then the rain began to let up and slow; now it only tapped his head. Gaara could have sworn it was echoing in his ears, but he pushed it off as another effect of the heat wave in the desert had caused. The pit pat of rain turned gentle and the gales became zephyrs that now only misted his chapped face. The clouds were still a heavy, leaden gray, and they still held the occasional mutter of thunder, but it was clear the storm was letting up.  
  
In front of him, a bend appeared in the sky. It was a many-colored curve, glowing with the ethereal light of colors he hadn't learned the names for.  
  
A chill went down Gaara's spine as he recalled something that had happened just before he'd met Maizul. He glanced at his reflection in one of the puddles surrounding him. It was blurry, still being rippled by the occasional drop of rain, but there he was, a bedraggled ghost with an unlikely shock of red hair.  
  
That dream he'd had. . . .  
  
Gaara looked up at the rainbow again.  
  
He remembered a ridiculous old legend that said there was a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Funny how it didn't seem so ridiculous now.  
  
It had rained in the desert. No, it hadn't just rained, it had flooded.  
  
Gaara scooped up two full container of water and drank his fill before he set off for the curve in the sky. 


	12. White Calm

The drab clouds, having done their intended job, curled and lethargically began to swim to a new location where they were needed, like massive whales of the ocean. They opened up woven patches of sky that revealed the landscape below. Beneath the patches, at ground zero of the storm, there was a mess of muddy dunes.  
  
On the peak of the largest muddy dune was a girl.  
  
She was lying spread-eagled on the dune, her face tilted towards the sky. Her skin and the dirty garment she wore were pale, contrasting deeply with the silky matted mess of black that was her hair. Every part of her body said 'soaked'. Her hair was stuck to her forehead and her clothes had become slightly translucent and heavy with the weight of water. Pearl drops slid down every available patch of skin. Her eyes were closed, and it appeared that she was resting peacefully.  
  
Maizul wasn't alone for long, though. Another soaked figure with blindingly scarlet hair had appeared on the rim of the dune, and was soon kneeling next to her. This seemed to trigger a response in the girl, whose obsidian eyes flickered open.  
  
"Ah, Gaara," Maizul whispered weakly. "Ha. I knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you, so I just left."  
  
The question in his eyes caused Maizul to speak again.  
  
"I'm. . . . well, a rain dragon."  
  
A coughing fit began, and Gaara reached under Maizul's head, supporting it as specks of red flew from her mouth and stained the white cloth of her clothing. Maizul didn't appear to want to continue talking, but it all tumbled out anyway.  
  
"An earth dragon would've had less problems with the desert, but. . ." Maizul paused, searching Gaara's bland face with half-lidded eyes. "I think what you really needed was a little bit of rain. And I think. . ."  
  
She appeared to run out of breath, but gathered up enough to resume a whispery rattle.  
  
"I think that you have enough power in you to end the drought. You can make it rain."  
  
"Stupid girl, using all your energy," Gaara mumbled.  
  
"Dummy. . . . making it rain isn't usually so hard. . . . . but my energy. . . ."  
  
Her energy was gone. There had been so little left even before, so all of her remaining chakra had been used to create the storm.  
  
"Just. . . . hand me your gourd. You. . . . . must do this. . . . . . from. . . . . the highest place. . . . ."  
  
"Selfish," Gaara muttered, pulling the empty gourd off of his back and uncorking it. He placed it in the sand next to Maizul.  
  
Her body seemed to suddenly absorb the drops of water that had been on her skin. It rippled gently and slowly turned aqua translucent. Transparency finally began to settle in, and the girl became a body of water.  
  
"If anyone's being selfish. . . . .it's you." she whispered, her voice flowing like water over rocks, "Not wanting me to leave you alone again. . . . . dumbass. . . . ."  
  
The water-body lost its shape, as if it had just been poured out of a jug, and it flowed downhill into the gourd. It left behind a stained, soaking white cloth that had been previously used as clothing.  
  
Gaara stared at the place where Maizul had been only moments earlier. He didn't move for a very long time.  
  
Maizul.  
  
He didn't really even know what his relationship with her had been. They hadn't been enemies - the only time they had fought was in the beginning. They hadn't been lovers - neither of them had seemed capable of something of that magnitude. They hadn't really been friends, either. They had just sort of put up with each other - a mutual partnership of two people who were both lost, in a way.  
  
Why had she sacrificed herself, then?  
  
It wasn't as if she had to. She could have just let Gaara die and say that she had failed her mission or whatever.  
  
Maybe there was something he hadn't understood about her, then. She had been very different from him.  
  
She had thought him worth saving, though. It was something beyond Gaara's comprehension. He was worth nothing to everyone. Why. . . . ?  
  
He must have been worth something, after all. He was worth something to Maizul, and it didn't matter why. She had sacrificed herself so he would live.  
  
She was gone, but Gaara knew he was no longer alone. Even if she was gone, he could still feel her presence in the water. He could feel her presence in the air around him. Black lids closed over blue pupils, and opened again, renewed.  
  
She had saved him. The least he could do for her was complete her last wish - for him to make it rain. He had a purpose now, something he felt he had been looking for all along.  
  
Gaara pushed the cork back into the gourd and swung it onto his back. The gourd was heavy again, but this time it wasn't with bloodstained sand meant for vengeance. It was filled with water - something that had an entirely different purpose.  
  
Gaara didn't look back as he stepped off of the dune's peak and towards a new horizon.  
  
If he had, he would've seen something strange.  
  
The red dunes were, in fact, no longer red. Neither were they the same color as the yellow dunes surrounding them, though.  
  
The scarlet dunes had somehow been bleached a shining white. 


	13. Brown Field

Note: Okay, so Maizul existed only for the further development of Gaara's character, but maybe I didn't spend enough time on her. This means I may throw in another chapter after finishing the story. Sigh. . . .  
  
The aurous dunes had been left behind by Gaara's persistent footsteps, though the periwinkle sky would follow wherever he went, reminding him of the task at hand.  
  
Desert was now prairie, and already Gaara could see the outline of a forest in the distance. The trees began a gentle slope upward into the highlands that were bound to follow.  
  
A breeze made the tall grass whisper around him, bringing it to life and curling it like a million fir hairs on Mother Earth's soft head. Small animals occasionally chattered and clicked, a huge contrast to the oppressive silence of the desert.  
  
Evidence of the drought was still present here, though. The grass was faded and browned - a sign of too little water. Even the far-off trees bore scars of drought; they held within their beryl ranks some browned casualties of a battle against the elements.  
  
Gaara was a ghostly red dot amongst the stretching, bending fields that reached their cracked hands all the way to the edges of both forest and desert.  
  
He knew that by nightfall he would reach the dark boughs of the first sentinels of the forest. By the next day he hoped to arrive at his intended destination. There was a slight problem with his destination, though. He would have to travel fast to avoid capture once he reached it, because he was positive that its inhabitants would not be happy to see him. He was not sure how long he would be able to evade their highly trained defenses.  
  
Maizul had said to do it from the highest place, though, and it was the highest place he could think of. It was also the only other place he'd actually been, besides his home village and the desert.  
  
At any rate, he needed to be close to the sky. Maizul had been a rain dragon, but he was not; therefore making things slightly more difficult. He wasn't sure how high his chakra would reach without assistance, and in this respect, Maizul had given good advice. He wouldn't need to propel chakra so high if he was closer to his target.  
  
That effectively gave him two choices.  
  
One: Get as high as you can and complete your mission.  
  
The only problem with this was that there was a chance he would be killed beforehand by the defenses.  
  
Two: Try it now. If you fail, you're dead and you haven't done shit.  
  
That was the way he saw it.  
  
However, it really complicates things when the highest place you can think of also happens to be the place you were sent to destroy. 


	14. Orange Interlude

It was dark in the forest. Small animals twitched and chittered in the shadows as they went about their business. Slivers of light pierced the intertwined boughs that were pitch and chartreuse overhead, illuminating three people that were leaning against one ancient umber trunk. They were silent, and occasionally glanced around or above them as if waiting for someone.  
  
"Why is he never on time?!" one of them, a girl, complained. She ran two hands through her strawberry pink hair that was cropped short against her head. "He could just tell us to come a couple of hours later!!!!"  
  
"Yeah!" the blonde agreed. "If we just came a couple of hours later, then-"  
  
The girl clapped a hand over his mouth, while the third member of their party ignored them completely and stared off into the shadows.  
  
"Don't bother, Naruto," the girl muttered, a glare fixed on her face. She aimed it at her shorter male companion. "The last time we had a conversation like this, I learned plenty of things I didn't want to know about your hygiene."  
  
"Aaaaaawwwww, but, but, Sakura-chan," Naruto whined when he finally managed to tug her hand free of his mouth for a few seconds.  
  
"No way," Sakura growled, wrestling Naruto to the ground and firmly placing her hand over his mouth again. Their companion glanced at them briefly in what might have been annoyance before flicking his gaze back to their surroundings.  
  
"Oy! Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura," a voice began from overhead. The three present tilted their heads upwards, Sakura and Naruto's bickering forgotten, and saw a silver haired man with a facemask covering all but one eye on a bough above them.  
  
Sakura reached into her kunai holder and pulled out a watch. She stared at it in shock for a few minutes before finally making an announcement.  
  
"Kakashi-sensei, you've made a first! You only came half an hour late!"  
  
"No way!" Naruto exclaimed before standing on tiptoe to peek over Sakura's shoulder at the watch clasped in her hands.  
  
Kakashi sighed at the antics of the two more verbal in his group, but immediately followed up with an explanation as to why he was so early.  
  
"Well, I had to go to a short jounin meeting before coming here, but it only took 15 minutes, so. . . . ."  
  
Kakashi tapped an index finger to his forehead.  
  
"Well?!" Naruto impatiently burst out, his hands clenched into fists. "What is it?! A cool new mission where we get to travel again?!"  
  
Kakashi gave Naruto a long, hard stare, as if wondering why*. However, he did continue with his previous speech.  
  
"You could call it a mission, but we're not traveling very far. In fact, it's right here in our own Konohagakure."  
  
"Stop stalling! What is it?!"  
  
Three glares were thrown at Naruto, who ignored them.  
  
"He was getting to the point, baka," Sasuke finally said, speaking up for the first time.  
  
Silence reigned for approximately three seconds before Kakashi added to his previous statement.  
  
"We need to go join up with the rest of the shinobi today. Gaara has been spotted in Konoha, heading towards the Hokage monument. Half of the village is chasing him."  
  
**********************************************************************  
  
*'why' as in 'why did I ever pass them', 'why am I here', 'why is he so damn loud this early in the morning', etc.  
  
Note: I don't think there was any real character bashing (I hope). Naruto is my favorite after Gaara, Sasuke, and Kakashi. :) This chapter was hard to crank out because it's a huge contrast to all previous chapters. Team 7 talks so much more than Gaara! 


	15. Bronze Village

Note: I really hate the previous chapter. Should I delete it or not? Post your opinion in the review area. Thanks. Heh, BTW, I only changed one paragraph to kinda fix the plot back in ch. 2 or ch. 3 somewhere. I refuse to rewrite the beginning. Too much work. :)  
  
The dense, smothering forest had given way to one of a different kind - hundreds of bronzed buildings that towered over each other as they stretched their hands above the trees and towards the sky. These attempts were made futile by a sheer cliff wall that cut off one end of the city, pushing itself above everything and declaring the faces of the four hokage to all within viewing range. From a bird's eye view, the streets were sepia rivers of brickwork, stone, and dust that interwove and spanned all directions for the entire length of the village. A single, wide dirt road ambled towards the evergreen color that surrounded the contrasting colors of the town and lost itself in the dense foliage. Konohagakure was, indeed, a sight to see from above.  
  
Naruto wasn't above Konoha, though. Instead, he was striding down one of the many streets of the town in an unusually confident way. His eyes were focused and he appeared to have perfect control over his body, something unusual in the noisy boy. That was another strange thing: the apparent lack of noise. Usually, he was vying for everyone's attention, but today he appeared to be different. He appeared to have a purpose in mind. Most of the townsfolk would never notice this, as they preferred not to acknowledge his existence, but it had caught the eye of one who knew him well: Iruka. He had been following the boy for only five minutes, but he knew something was wrong. Naruto hadn't even said hello to him as he had passed by earlier, and that only happened when he was deeply perturbed. This had warranted some concerned following from Iruka.  
  
Actually, Iruka wasn't even sure why he was hiding. It might have been Naruto's odd behavior, but there was still no need, right? Iruka sighed. It would be better to confront Naruto. He immediately quickened his pace to match that of the blond genin ahead of him, and tapped his shoulder.  
  
Naruto turned and looked up at Iruka, but there was no flare of recognition. No wide grin. Naruto's eyes were narrowed orbs of sapphire stone. This immediately put Iruka on guard, even as he took a step back in surprise. He briefly pondered as to whether it was actually Naruto. The hair, clothes, and face markings were correct, but. . .  
  
Time to determine if it was him, then.  
  
"Hey, Naruto, d'you want some ramen?"  
  
Cold blue eyes met with open black, and clashed.  
  
"No, thank you," said the voice in a very un-Naruto tone. It was a bleak monotone, hardly emotional at all.  
  
It was Iruka's turn for his eyes to narrow as the blond boy turned away and began to walk again. Iruka snapped out a hand and stopped him in mid-step, spinning him around to face the older chuunin.  
  
"Who are you?" Iruka demanded in a biting tone, his voice chilling considerably. There was no way this could be Naruto! Iruka was suddenly awash with more worry for the safety of his former student. Had someone hurt him and stolen his form?  
  
It was at that moment that the Henge no Jutsu chose to fail, revealing a very stoic-looking Gaara.  
  
Gaara mentally cursed and fled immediately, making for the rooftops. He hadn't been planning on meeting anyone Naruto actually knew. He had only chosen Naruto's form because it was likely to be ignored by most of the village. It was just his luck. . .  
  
He didn't even have his sand anymore. His gourd was now being used for the express purpose of transporting water, and therefore he had nothing to carry the sand in. Sloshing sounds from behind his head served as a reminder of this. He would have a hard time attacking and defending without his sand.  
  
The only problem was that the chuunin he had encountered would doubtlessly raise the alarm by alerting the Hokage, who would then send in all available ninjas. Gaara didn't have the time or patience to explain to them what he was trying to do: they would never believe him anyway.  
  
He would just have to run, then.  
  
Gaara increased his pace to maximum speed as he made the final dash in his own self-imposed race towards the Hokage monument that towered over even the most formidable buildings in the village. There was no turning back now. 


	16. Onyx Rain

The world was a blur of colors and sound. Buildings in bright, cheery hues flashed by in a pinwheel and the loudest sound in his ears was that of his own labored breathing. He cleared the jump quickly to the tower in front of him and tried to ignore the panicked shouts of people behind him as more and more began to notice his presence.  
  
Everything was in a perpetual state of vertigo, all sunlit and lined in the wallpaper of motion. It gave Gaara the overall feeling of running in one place on a giant wheel, where everything was moving but him. He was moving though - the only hint being that the ashen craggy bluff was steadily becoming larger in his vision.  
  
The first shuriken whistled by Gaara's ear, alerting him of the presence of several shinobi who had begun the pursuit. Gaara put up his guard as much as he could without letting up speed while also checking his balance. The water within the gourd weighed a good amount less than the sand that had been its predecessor; he had to watch the way he ran more. He'd had much more time to get used to the sand than the water, so it was a great deal harder for him to concentrate. Gaara knew that his only hope lay in not getting caught by the leaf nin. Without his sand, he could handle two or three chuunin, but by the amount of pounding feet behind him, he knew that there were many more than that, and the numbers probably included jounin as well.  
  
A piercing, acute pain on his left arm announced a hit from one of the massive amounts of throwing missiles that he had so far been able to dodge. Gaara didn't even look to assess the damage done and the weapon that had been used. It would only slow him down, and he couldn't afford that.  
  
The sun suddenly winked out of sight behind the shadow of the behemothic mass of granite that was now directly in front of him. Seeing no alternative, Gaara began to scale the cliff barehanded.  
  
His deft fingers continuously swept the fractured stone for handholds that would bring him higher, and he found himself moving upwards at a steady pace. A few shuriken ricocheted off of the rock next to his head, reminding him that he was not alone. Having used the precious few minutes to get used to the feeling of rock-climbing, Gaara had begun to move faster. His rate was not one of panic, though, because Gaara wasn't really capable of that emotion. He didn't stop, not even when his hands started to bleed from receiving constant contact with barbed granite and from the friction of rubbing them against rock.  
  
Gaara risked a glance downward and saw that a mass of shinobi had followed him, all gripping the rock and moving at a quick pace towards him. Gaara gritted his teeth and ignored the demon inside him, which had suddenly aroused with a bloodlust to match its constant anger. It wanted to go back and kill them. It wanted to rip them to shreds, and it wanted to make them pay for the last time, when it had been miserably defeated. It wanted . . .  
  
A wet, sloshing sound brought him out of his reverie, and Gaara resumed his climb. The sound of water was somehow soothing, a gentle reminder of the task he had yet to complete. He was almost over the Third Hokage's nose, and he still had much more rock to climb before he could do what he needed to do. The small scraping, plodding sounds of his pursuers were growing closer, and Gaara knew it wouldn't be much longer before they caught him. And if they caught him. . .  
  
Gaara stopped his thoughts there. He knew how Hidden Sand Village had treated invading ninjas, and it wasn't a pleasant memory. This spurred him on - he resumed a hurried pace on the rock face.  
  
A hand caught a loose end of the ragged clothing he wore, and Gaara looked down and saw a ninja who had gotten ahead of the others. It wasn't one he recognized from the Chuunin Exam. A self preservation instinct kicked in and Gaara shoved his foot into the man's face. It was nothing personal, just a job he had to do. The shinobi didn't fall, but he did stop long enough for Gaara to manage an escape. Gaara gritted his teeth. There was only a little more to climb, he could see the top only a few feet away from him.  
  
A hand suddenly appeared from the top of the cliff and snatched a handful of clothing, yanking Gaara up to the top. Gaara found himself faced with the white-haired jounin he recognized as Naruto's sensei. Kakashi's single visible eye stared disinterestedly at Gaara, who was currently several feet above ground in his formidable one-handed grasp.  
  
"Mind telling me what this is all about?" Kakashi asked in a lazy tone. He figured he had all day, or at least until the rest of the leaf nin caught up.  
  
Gaara was silent for a few seconds before ripping the clothing off in one clean motion and propelling himself away from Kakashi.  
  
"Where's that sand you're so famous for?" Kakashi questioned, turning towards the position that the Sand genin now held. Gaara had taken up a fighting stance, and a determined look had appeared in his eyes. Kakashi sighed.  
  
"You want to fight me now? Don't all of your attacks involve sand?"  
  
Gaara didn't reply, but the demon surged inside of him, raging to be let out and promising to kill the jounin before them. Gaara didn't have his sand, but the demon could easily do the job.  
  
Gaara's hands began to move in a rapid succession of seals, and Kakashi reached for his forehead protector, single eye narrowed and ready for whatever Gaara was planning to do.  
  
But despite the tense stance he had taken, Kakashi wasn't ready for what Gaara was about to do. Neither were the ninja that had appeared over the edge of the Hokage Monument, ready to fight.  
  
"CHAKRA RELEASE!" Gaara commanded, and the gourd on his back exploded, pushing water into the sky with all the force of both his and the demon's chakra that swirled around it in a tangible white.  
  
Kakashi removed his hand from the cloth that covered his face and stared slack-jawed at the sky, where boiling onyx clouds had begun to quickly condense in a storm of proportions no one had ever seen before.  
  
Clouds lined up past the horizon, rumbling as if readying for a battle that had yet to be fought. They swirled and rolled and raced at each other, occasionally letting off an evanescent shock of brilliant electricity into the ground. Cumulonimbus clouds formed an unbreakable wall between earth and sky and crushed every opportunity the sun had to come through like the leviathan beasts they were.  
  
Then the black bellies of the clouds gave birth to the first veritable rain in ages. It was a monsoon with the godlike presence that could only have come from the water of a rain dragon and the chakra of a demon. Rain was slow at first, but hurriedly rose to a steady thrumming upon the land that beat harder than a thousand drums, drowning out all conversation and creating its own brand of silence - a deafening roar that could be halted by no man. A thundering, beating sound that was under the control of mother nature and no one else.  
  
It was a rain that cured the thirst of the grass and trees and people and was brimming with fresh life to be brought to the earth. It was the purest kind of rain that had ever come from the onyx wool of clouds, brought by a redeemed soul's selflessness. It was a hearkening rain that spoke of renaissance.  
  
The hordes of people that had been chasing Gaara had left, astonished at what the red-haired demon had done but willing to get under cover in the tempest. Now only four people stood on the battlements of the Hokage Monument, frozen in place and time.  
  
Team 7 were the only ones left.  
  
Sasuke was staring wide-eyed at the prone body of Gaara as he tried to peer through the curtain of rain that obscured him from clear view. It had to be him - there was the phoenix fire hair, the obsidian lining surrounding sightless twin pools that reflected the ash-cerulean of the storm overhead, the red kanji of ai that glowed in an ethereal way on his pale brow. But there was something on Gaara's calm features that Sasuke would never have expected to see, even in death.  
  
Naruto pawed at his tear-stained face with a wet tangerine sleeve and turned to Sasuke, the words already forming on his lips.  
  
"That's the first time I've ever seen Gaara really smile."  
  
.:fin:. 


End file.
